To Look Alike
by aloxi
Summary: A view on Tally from an unlikely person, post-Extras. Tally/David.
1. Five

I think people are scared of my mom.

I'm not sure why, except they always back up a little when she comes into a room, and their eyes get real wide. Most of the time Mom's carrying me, though, so I don't know why everybody's so afraid of a lady with a kid.

Mom and Dad's friend Shay said it's 'cause not a lot of people look like Mom does… but Shay kind of looks like her, I think, except softer. So do their other friends who come visit sometimes— and they all have those cuts on their arms like Mom, too.

After Shay told me that, I asked why Dad's not scared, since he kisses Mom lots, even when she uses her mad voice (like last week when I didn't clean up my room). Shay said that taking on millions of years of evolution was his hobby, and I didn't get that part but I forgot to ask about it 'cause just then she showed me the cool new hover board she got and even let me ride on it a little with her. Then Mom and Dad came in and looked like they were gonna need life-extension treatments and Shay got yelled at.

Also, Mom and Dad are on the newsfeeds lots of times, and sometimes I'm even on there with them (the funniest time is when a hovercam kept getting way too close to me, so Mom flung it into the wall and it broke into a bunch of pieces). But shouldn't that mean everyone knows how Mom looks, so nobody should be scared of her?

One time I was at Grandma Maddy's house, and it was almost time for bed. I visit her a lot, but only sleep over when Mom and Dad have to go on trips to other cities— they say I'm too little for coming with them. I was sitting on the counter chewing a toothpaste pill and looking into her big mirror.

"My eyes are weird-colored," I told her. "They're blue and green at the same time."

"No, dear," Grandma Maddy said, while she was brushing my hair, "they look like your mother's used to."

I stared at her. "You mean Mom got surge like those people in the city?" That sounded really weird, since Grandma Maddy's house is like ours: it isn't in the city, it's outside it. She says she's used to living outside the city, and nobody ever says 'no' to her, not even official city people.

"She did," Grandma Maddy said, lifting me up. She carried me into her bedroom and put me on the bed, the pulled the blankets over me.

"What kind of surge?" I asked. I couldn't remember Mom's eyes being anything except black.

Grandma Maddy took a minute to answer. "A special kind," she finally said.

I smiled at her, showing my teeth. One had just come out yesterday, when it was so loose that Dad tugged it out for me. "Mom's special," I said, snuggling into the pillows and yawning.

I think I was almost asleep when Grandma Maddy said, kind of sadly, "Yes, she certainly is."

*

The day after Mom and Dad got back from the other city and took me home, I was watching Mom make my lunch. Usually she waits for Dad, 'cause Mom hardly ever eats and mostly burns stuff she tries to make anyway, but I was really hungry and Dad had to talk with Important People, so we were alone.

"Mom?" I said.

"Hmm?" she said back, then muttered a bad word that I got in trouble for saying too.

"Grandma Maddy said your eyes used to be like mine."

She didn't say a bad word then, but I think she should have, 'cause she was quiet for so long that my sandwich started smoking. My city-friend Kina says that normal moms don't make their own kid's lunch, they let the house do it, but my mom does lots of things different from other people.

"They did," Mom said, really quiet, then looked at my sandwich, _then _said a bad word, then threw it in the incinerator. She took a big breath and let it out slow, the way Dad does when he's trying not to get mad. The flash tattoos on the side of her face were spinning faster than normal. I sat on the kitchen chair on my knees and pulled her down so I could touch them. I want flash tattoos whenever I'm allowed to get surge. They are _so _icy (I think that last word means "good," since Shay says it a lot and Shay's mostly happy all the time).

Mom smiled a little when I traced her flash tattoos. "Why did you change your eyes?" I asked her.

"I didn't exactly… well. It's hard to remember," is all she said. Mom does that sometimes— explains things so that I still don't understand, like when I asked why some lady on the newsfeeds called Dad "ugly," or how come Shay and her friends are sorta like Mom but less.

I shrugged, and wondered if I should ask for another sandwich or just eat a snack instead, but then Mom picked me up so she could look in my eyes… the ones that are like hers used to be. I tried to put my blue-and-green color in Mom's, but it just looked weird: Mom has _black _eyes. Just like some newsfeed man asked me one time if I wanted my mother to look more Pretty, whatever Pretty is, exactly, and I tried to imagine it but just couldn't— but only after Mom made me turn around so I wouldn't see what I saw later anyway on the feeds, which was her slamming him into a wall and telling him to get out in a voice that sounded like it was full of knives.

Most people have softer faces, like Dad and Grandma Maddy and my city-friend Kina and her mom. So maybe that's why people are scared of_ my_ mom: she's something they've never seen before.

Maybe newsfeeds really don't count. Maybe my mom is somebody you have live with for a long time before you get used to her.

I put my hand on her tattoos again. They were spinning really fast. "Do you want my eyes to be like yours?" Mom asked me, her voice real quiet again. "We could look alike, they way you and Dad look alike."

I stared at her, sort of confused. "What for?"

She didn't say anything for a minute. Then she patted my hair real light, like only Mom can. "I could change," she said, so soft it was like she was whispering a secret. "If you ever get… if you ever get scared of me."

I tilted my head sideways, the way Dad does when people don't make sense. Why was Mom worried I was scared of her? _I'm _not, even though lots of people don't like her sharp face, and her sharp teeth, and her sharp black eyes and her dark flash tattoos.

"No," I told her, and picked up a piece of her hair from her shoulder so I could play with it. She was still holding me, leaning against the metal counter. "I'm not scared of you, and I don't want us to look alike."

Now Mom looked kinda confused, which was mega-Helen weird, since Mom usually knows _everything. _"Are you sure?" she asked, but like she didn't really want to. "I don't want you…" Mom took a big breath again. "I just never want you to be nervous because of how I look. I could go back to looking like I used to— like _you._"

Then I rolled my eyes, the way Dad does sometimes when Mom breaks stuff, right before he calls her 'dramatic' and asks her if she's gonna go throw it in the fire now. Which doesn't even make sense, but that's just how Mom and Dad are.

"_Mom,_" I said, wrapping my legs around her waist tighter so I wouldn't slip, "if you looked more like _me_, you wouldn't look like _you._"

It took her a second, but then Mom smiled so big that her eyes crinkled. "You get more like your dad every day," she murmured, and added, "You want to try for another sandwich?"

"Yeah!" I cried, laughing. Mom spun me around before she put me back in the kitchen chair, so when I looked at her, I couldn't help but feel dizzy.


	2. Seven

_I didn't intend to write any more of this fic... but Tally's world through the eyes of her daughter sort of sucked me in. Our narrator is a couple of years older, here— seven, to be exact. Just check the chapter titles; they'll show her ages. I think I may keep writing until she hits sixteen, the age Tally was when the story of Uglies began. _

_All notes aside, however, please enjoy this chapter! I would appreciate some feedback. :) _

* * *

"But I don't _want _to. I'm _tired._"

I was pretty sure Mom was starting to get annoyed with me. She let out a really long breath, then went on brushing my hair and said, "I know you don't, and I know you are. Fortunately for your dad and I, however, we're the adults and don't need to take your preferences into consideration. We're going."

_Take my preferences into consideration. _Why doesn't she just say, _We don't care what you think_?

I scowled at the wall. Mom had made me sit down at the kitchen table to she could fix my hair, 'cause she hates it when it gets in my face and whenever I put it up by myself I always leave a few pieces out on accident, so it does anyway. I think I was starting to get a headache from the way she kept pulling at it, though.

Dad walked by, whistling. He smiled at Mom and me and said, "Almost ready?"

"Almost."

I'm pretty sure anybody else would have jumped when she all of a sudden slammed her hand down on the table in front of me, but I've kinda gotten used to it. The wood rocked back and forth while she said to Dad, "Crap. Do we still have any of that hair-stick stuff?"

"If you haven't poured all of it over your head by now."

Mom rolled her eyes, then lifted up my hand and ordered me to _hold my hair and hold still _as she walked towards their bedroom. I made another face at the wall. Mom uses that hair-stick stuff almost every day, even though me and Dad always tell her she looks pretty with her hair down, too. But Mom never listens. I told that to Shay and she said, "How shocking."

Mom was back in two seconds. Most people say things like that and don't really mean it, but I'm always serious when I do. Mom moves really fast. It's part of whatever special surge she got before I was born. Which I asked about the other day, but Mom just made a weird noise in her throat and Dad said, "When you're older."

I think that means when I'm a crumbly.

Mom took my hair back and slicked some of the hair-stick stuff through it (I'm pretty sure it has an actual name, but we just call it "the hair-stick stuff"). I heard her ponytail snapping from off her wrist, and it made me feel kind of happy that she was letting me wear hers, even though we had the same exact ones other than that mine are colored and hers are boring black.

I stayed quiet while she fixed my hair perfect, which is how she likes things. Mom is usually pretty nice all the time, not like my friend Kina's mom, who yells a lot when Kina doesn't do stuff right, but Shay said that tonight was making Mom "stressed out." That's probably why she'd been snapping at me the whole day. I don't know why— I like visiting Grandpa Sol and Grandma Ellie, even though we only go a few times a year. I see Grandma Maddie every week, but she lives near us, and my other grandparents don't live close at all.

They live in a whole different city; we don't even live _in _the city.

We live right outside Diego, but I think it's way different than other cities anyway. Whenever we go visit my Grandma Ellie and Grandpa Sol, Mom has to put her eye up to a little screen and let it read her pupil or something, so they know who she is and who's coming into their city. But _that _always makes lots of people come out, since... well, I guess everyone likes Mom. And she's the only one who can do the eye-screen thing, because she says it doesn't work for people born outside cities. People like Dad and me.

Mom finished with my hair just then, and went over to Dad. They talked about security for a minute, which meant that the window on our hovercar had better by hovercam repellant or Mom would punch someone. I know. She's done it before.

Shay said that Mom and Dad like hoverboards betters than hovercars, but a hovercar is safer for me ('cause Mom's paranoid about letting me on hoverboards— she thinks I'll fall off and hurt myself, even though they make trainer ones for littlies. But I don't even try to fight with her about _that_ anymore). So we have a nice one, even though we only use it to visit Grandpa Sol and Grandma Ellie.

I smoothed over the skirt that Mom made me wear and watched Mom and Dad hug for a second. Then Mom pulled back and looked way more put together instead of falling apart, like she had before they hugged, and Dad made a motion to me that meant _come on_, and he kissed me on the top of the head when we left the house.

* * *

"Are we there yet?"

"David, please tell me you brought some champagne."

"I didn't know you were feeling bubbly."

"Shut up. I need some champagne in me for this."

"Are we _there _yet?"

"Sorry, I think there's a rule about getting drunk before going to your parents' house."

"Can Specials even get drunk?"

"Are we there _yet?_"

"I don't know, but you aren't going to find out tonight."

"How bogus of you."

"_Mooom. Daaad._ Are. We. There. Yet?"

Dad shook his head at me. "A little longer." Then he turned back to Mom and smacked her hand away from the bag he'd packed with food for me and him during the trip. "How do you know it's not full of SpagBol?"

I giggled when Mom groaned and fell against his shoulder. Mom _hates_ SpagBol. Then I pulled my legs up onto the seat and turned my head so I could look out the window. Dad had tried to program the route into the hovercar before we left, but Mom had to help him in the end. She always does. But he always has to help her cook food without burning it and write longhand, so I think that means they're even. Shay told me once that Rusty cars had to have people steer them all the time or they crashed. In hovercars, you just program your route and it goes there. Except where there's no metal— Mom had to make it move, then, before we got to the river.

Mom and Dad kept talking, mostly making fun of each other; they do that a lot. I think about Grandpa Sol and Grandma Ellie's house. The last time we went there they gave me a new dress, which I guess they meant for me to wear whenever Mom and Dad decide it's okay for me to come with them when they go to Special Events, where there are lots of hovercams around who always try to get close to me and put my picture on the newsfeeds. Except Mom made a gagging face at Dad when she unpacked it back at home and put it at the very top of my closet where I can't reach.

Mom and me don't like dresses very much.

* * *

"Oh, Tally!"

Mom smiled at Grandma Ellie. Even though she complains about coming to visit, I don't think she can help smiling when she sees her mom for the first time in lots of months. I wouldn't be able to. "Hi, Ellie. I missed you."

Oh, yeah: Mom calls her parents by their real names. How weird is _that? _

Grandpa Sol was busy shaking Dad's hand and talking about the only thing they have in common: me. I fidgeted with my skirt, a blue one because Mom knows I get white dirty too fast, and pressed my head harder against her hip. Her hand slipped down to tuck a few wispy pieces of hair behind my ear.

Grandma Ellie bent down. She had two curved lines carved on either side of her mouth; her eyes were wide and big on her face. Grandma Maddie has more wrinkles, but they don't look bad, and her eyes are normal-sized.

I can't figure out which one I like better.

"Hi there," Grandma Ellie smiled, and reached out to hug me. She smelled like sugar and the cookies she always gives me even though Mom tells her not to. "Oh, we've missed all of you so much!"

She reached up and held Mom's hand and grinned again.

She didn't look at Dad, though.

* * *

I was supposed to be asleep.

Grandpa Sol and Grandma Ellie only had one extra bedroom, the one Mom slept in when she was a littlie. But Grandpa Sol was good at making things, and he built a new big bed so we could all sleep on it when we came to visit. He said he could make two, one for Mom and Dad and one for me, but Mom said under her breath, "That'd be too tempting." I don't think she meant for Grandpa Sol to hear, but he did, and he sort of looked away and mumbled after that.

But anyway: I was supposed to be asleep, and I wasn't, and Mom and Dad were talking really quiet over my head. I was in between them, but closer to Dad because Mom had some huge book in her lap.

"I still don't get what the issue is," Mom was complaining. I heard pages flipping even though I was pretty sure she wasn't actually reading them. "They took the pills. It shouldn't bother them."

If I didn't want them to think I was sleeping, I would have made a face. Mom and Dad blocked almost every channel on the newsfeeds, but even the littlie ones they let me watch still talked about _pills_ sometimes. I guess they're something every grown-up takes, even though Mom and Dad won't say anything about it when I ask.

Maybe I should ask Shay. She tells me lots of stuff, and last month she took me to see the Rusty Ruins even though Mom said she'd throw her in the river if she did. But Shay just laughed and said, "Been there, done that, Tally-wa."

I felt Dad shaking his head. "You know that doesn't change everything, Tally. They were bubbleheads for a lot longer than most of the people we know— they've spent years getting used to Pretty faces."

Bubbleheads? All that made me think of was the bubbles I made in the river when I was swimming and blew my breath out underwater. I made my breaths come out slower now, so they would keep talking. Maybe this was the stuff they taught you about in littlie school— I wouldn't know, I didn't go to school like my friend Kina did. Mom and Dad wouldn't let me.

Mom slammed her book shut with a _thump. _I hoped she didn't break it. "That's no excuse! I could deal with it if they— I don't know, looked at you like you were disgusting or something. I could get _angry _about that. But they just… ignore it. Ignore you."

Something moved over my head, like Dad was putting his hand on Mom's shoulder. His voice was extra-soft when he said, "I prefer it to disgust, shockingly enough. Honestly, Tally, I've gotten used to things like this. Don't let it ruin your relationship with them. They're nice people."

Mom snorted. "Nice people who look around you, not at you." Then her voice got as soft as Dad's. "The Mind Rain was supposed to change all this."

"You're the one who said it's evolution," Dad sighed, but by then I'd stopped listening.

My fingers moved a little bit; I couldn't help it. Why would they not want to look at Dad? They were _always _looking at me. Grandpa Sol took me to his workshop and let me watch him make me a little wooden box, and Grandma Ellie had me help her paint it all different colors. Me and her watched the house spin flour and eggs and sugar together to make cookies, even though it felt kind of weird not to be begging Dad to let me crack an egg by myself and listening to Mom mutter about measurements and screwing up my face when he kissed her to make her be quiet. But Grandpa Sol let me watch a movie on his wallscreen, since we don't have one at our house, and Grandma Ellie braided my hair tight against the sides of my head the way Mom tried to do once when I asked but just tangled it all up instead.

So how come Mom said they kept looking around Dad?

I wanted to say something _so bad, _but I bit the inside of my cheek instead. Mom and Dad had been talking all while I was thinking, and the next thing I heard was Mom saying, "I don't know, maybe I should ping Shay; you know my skintenna still works, and she could check—" Then she stopped, and the side of me that she was on went really still.

Dad said, "Tally?" But she shushed him and stayed quiet again— listening? I didn't know. Except then Mom sighed, and rubbed her hand between my shoulder blades, and said, "She's awake."

My stomach flipped over inside me. I dragged myself up, scrubbed a hand over my hair and blinked at Mom. Her flash tattoos were spinning, but not too-too fast, so maybe I wasn't in a lot of trouble. "Sorry," I said quietly. Then I turned to look at Dad. The bed was pushed into a corner, and he was leaning against the wall, looking tired, but... not look-through-able. "How did Mom know I wasn't sleeping?" I asked.

"Magic," Mom said from my other side. She rubbed a hand over her face and slid down, so she was lying with her head on the pillow instead of sitting against the bed's headboard. "I could hear your heartbeat. It sounds different when you're really asleep."

I lifted up her arm so I could lay under it. "You can hear my heart? Can you hear everybody's heart?"

"Mhmm," she hummed, and looked up and over at Dad. "Do you know how to turn out the light?" she asked, kind of smirking.

"Tell the all-knowing house to do it?" he guessed, and rolled his eyes.

Mom laughed. "Lights off, please," she said, louder than normal, and the lights flickered off.

I laughed, too. I always like that part of the house. Ours had stupid switches you have to flip. "Lights on!" I said, rolling off of Mom. They came back on. "Lights off!" They went back off. "Lights on!" They flicked on again. "Lights off! Lights on! Lights off! Lights—"

Mom sighed my name. Whenever she's warning me about something, she always says it quiet and sharp, like there's some spiky thing in the middle of the word. But it never messes up my name— it shouldn't; Mom and Dad's other friend is named Andrew Simpson Smith, and the last time he came to visit he said that the people he used to live with sang a song with my name in it. Shay told me it's an old Rusty one, one that made it past all the starving and dying and new cities and new people.

Dad leaned over and kissed my forehead, then leaned over farther and kissed Mom's mouth. I muttered "Gross," but they both just laughed.

I closed my eyes against the dark and started to really fall asleep. But not before I heard Mom say, the words soft and fuzzy because of how almost-sleeping I was, "She's going to grow out of that, right?"


	3. Ten

"Andrew!"

Mom and Dad laughed from behind me, but I didn't care. I hadn't seen Andrew in _forever_—I was allowed to hug him if I wanted.

"Hello, little one," he said, patting my hair. All the people from his village called me "little one." It was confusion-making, but kinda nice too. I tilted my head back, keeping my arms around him.

"I _missed _you," I told him. "Mom and Dad keep saying we're too busyto visit."

"I am sure they have their reasons," he said, then smiled at my parents. His teeth aren't even like the other people I know, and his skin is even more tanned than Mom's, so he's sort of weird looking. But I don't mind. I like weird. Why else would I love Mom and Dad?

Ha! That was funny. I need to remember to tell Kina that whenever we get to see each other again. She lives inside Diego, and Mom and Dad don't like me going into the city more than I have to, so Mom mostly just lets me use her pinging thing to talk to Kina until I finally annoy them both enough to let me go see her in person. Except it takes a lot of energy to be that annoying (no matter what Mom says), and Kina goes to littlie school most days, so we can't see each other whenever those are. Ugh. I even asked Shay last week if she would talk to Mom and Dad about letting me go to school to, and she said she thought that it would be a bad idea. Why does no one want me to go to school?

Andrew distracted me from thinking about all of that, though, by taking my hand and leading me farther into his village. He told me before that people used to be trapped inside by these neuron-scramblers (well, he called them "the little men" but Dad told me they were actually neuron-scramblers), but then somebody took them down and now they could go to cities if they wanted. But a lot of people wanted to stay in their village— they didn't trust the cities, and they didn't like them. I think Dad's kind of like that, 'cause whenever I do get to see Kina and he's the one who takes me, he acts jumpy the whole time. Andrew visits cities, though, even me and Mom and Dad a few times, except now he stays in the village a lot 'cause of Lily.

Mom and Dad got stopped from following me and Andrew by some lady holding a baby on her hip. I turned around so I could smile at it— I couldn't exactly tell if it was a boy or a girl. It shrieked a little bit and then tried to touch Mom's flash tattoos. I laughed. Grandma Maddy says I used to do that a lot when I was little.

"How's Lily?" I asked Andrew, waving to Dad to let him know I was going somewhere else. He smiled back, then touched Mom's hand and said something in her ear. Andrew beamed at me.

"She is very good. The baby, it will be coming soon."

"Really?" Wow, we _hadn't _visited in a long time. The last time we were here, Lily only had a tiny bump on her stomach. "That's so happy-making. What are you gonna call it?"

Andrew shrugged. "We do not know. Lily, she wanted to name it for your mother, since your mother and father named you from our song."

I laughed. "I bet Mom_ loooved_ that."

"She threatened to never visit again if we did," he said, and laughed too. Mom was so mega-Helen weird sometimes.

Me and Andrew walked a little farther, until we reached a bunch of women sitting in a circle. They were all talking and giggling in between making what looked like a really big blanket, from some animal fur. I knew what that looked like— Dad had a jacket made out of animal fur. I couldn't tell which one was Lily, though, until she stood up and let all the furs fall down so I could see her huge-looking stomach.

My eyes went wide. That looked like it _hurt. _How could somebody's skin stretch so far? Lily walked over, except it took longer than usual, but when she finally reached us Andrew kissed her on the mouth. Ugh. Apparently that isn't only a Mom-and-Dad thing. I am being exposed to bad influences, here.

Lily leaned over as far as she could until her stomach got in the way. She kissed me on the forehead, her lips leaving a warm spot on my skin. "So long since you've been here, little one!" she exclaimed.

"I know. Mom and Dad say we're too busy, but I missed everybody." The women in the circle all fluttered their fingers at me when I said that. I waved back, kind of shy-faced. Lily put one of her hands on her stomach, the other on her back. "That looks so pain-making!" I blurted out, before I could stop myself.

Lily curved her mouth up. "Worth it in the end," she sang. Lily has a voice like a bird— all trilling and light. I like it a lot, especially when she really is singing. She sounds beautiful.

All the other women wanted to talk with me, and Andrew stayed there too, mostly because I think he knows how nervous I get with lots of people around. That's how the city is, except it's easy to just go in, go past the crowds to Kina's house, and go back. Maybe me and Dad aren't so different about the "jumpy" thing.

Lily let me touch her stomach to feel the baby kicking from the inside. It was _so _icy— and also weird, but a good weird. Wow, that doesn't exactly make sense, does it? I'm just not that good at explaining things. Grandma Maddy said I kicked a lot inside Mom, and that she couldn't get any sleep 'cause of that. That makes me feel kinda bad, but… I _was _just a baby. I couldn't help it.

One time when she visited, Shay said that it's another revolution Mom started. Then Mom rolled her eyes and told her to shut up, but Shay finally told me that in the cities it's lots more common for doctors to take a piece of the mom and a piece of the dad, put them together in a special surge tank, and let the baby grow there. Except Mom got kinda famous for letting me grow inside her instead, and now people are doing it that way too.

Know what the best part is? Shay showed me a clip from the newsfeeds a bunch of years ago all about it! Mom yelled something like, "I can't believe you saved that, Shay-la!" and was pretty mad in general, but I liked it.

How dizzy-making is it, having a sort-of famous Mom?

(Except… what did Shay mean, _another _revolution?)

* * *

Hannah was braiding my hair. The older ladies in Andrew's village like to— their hair is all lots thicker than mine, and darker, but Mom says mine is "fine." I'm pretty sure that's a nice way of saying "thin."

"Will look pretty, very pretty," Hannah promised, and I could imagine the way the wrinkles in her face pulled up when she smiled. Grandma Ellie and Grandma Maddy have wrinkles, but not nearly as many as Hannah and Danah and Alice. I think Mom and Dad keep getting ready for when I say that I don't like the way all the older women look, but they wouldn't believe me if I said I really did. It's comforting, I guess, like Dad's jacket or the way Mom smells.

"I know it will," I told her, shivering a little when she accidentally splashed water on me. They didn't make ponytail holders, so she just dipped the end of my braid in really cold water and then knotted it.

"All done, little one," she announced. I patted the back of my head, not even wishing for a mirror— Hannah did good braids. Mom braided when I asked, but she mostly just tangled up my hair and then had to get Dad to help un-do what she'd messed up. But that was okay. I liked Mom's tangle-making braids too.

I hugged Hannah, more careful than I did with Andrew 'cause she was all thin and brittle looking, like she might snap if I was too rough. We were closest to Andrew (except for Lily and Mom and Dad, of course), at the front part of the circle all of the people had made. It was big and sprawling, and kids kept darting back and forth from one side to the other, and people pulled out to talk in their own language, which I didn't have a clue about. Even Mom and Dad hadn't learned it. Hannah patted my back with one gnarled hand, and I turned to my other side, to Lily.

"Lily?" I asked, shy-faced again. I hated it when I did that, but I could never help it. She hummed real quiet for an answer, looking up at me, one hand still on her stomach like it always was.

"Yes, little one?"

I tugged on the end of my hair. "Will you sing? Please?"

She laughed, but it was a nice laugh, not the making-fun kind. I picked a tiny bit of grass out of her hair, leaning closer to her shoulder. I like Lily. She's so pretty, too— her eyes are all big, and her hair is mega-long. "You want your song, hmm?"

I ducked my head and then nodded. Was it rude to say that? But I liked Lily singing my song, even though, technically, it was _way _more theirs than mine. I just had a name from it; they'd been singing it for years and years.

Lily took my hand and rubbed her thumb over my palm. I had a sudden memory of Mom doing that when I was little, when I was crying, except I forgot to pay attention to it when Lily opened her mouth and starting singing, just soft enough for only me to hear. But then Andrew noticed from her other side, and he stopped talking to someone else to listen, and that other person stopped to listen, and on and on and on until even though her voice was still as quiet as when she started, everyone could hear it:

"_Amazing Grace, sweet is the sound_

_That saved such a wretch as me,_

_Once I was lost, but now I'm found_

_Blinded, but now I see…"_

She was singing in English so I could understand, although it always sounded prettier in their language. But I liked knowing all the words. I mouthed them with her until the very end, when everybody clapped and started telling her how good a job she did. The littlest kids were yelling some of the words at the tops of their lungs, half-singing, half-screeching. I scrambled up onto my knees to give her a kiss on the cheek, my braid swinging against her shoulders. I was turning back to Hannah, thinking about asking her to teach me how to braid all by myself, when Mom caught my eye from way over on Andrew's left.

Her flash tattoos were spinning gently. "Come here, Grace," she said, leaning against Dad's shoulder. When I did, she lifted me onto her lap, even though just the other day she said I was getting too big for that.

Not that I was complaining.

* * *

_a/n: So, our protagonist's name has finally been revealed! :) I hope it was at least half of what you expected it to be. _

_On another note, I realize that the lyrics that Lily sings here are not the ones we hear in "Amazing Grace" today. I went with the assumption that more than three hundred years was bound to change them around a little— but with any luck, it was still totally recognizable. (And, since David has a name that's very popular nowadays, I figured he and Tally's daughter should have a popular "Rusty" name too.)_

_Also, to the reviewer who noted that in Uglies, Tally says her eyes are brown: Thanks for pointing it out! I don't own the book, so I just Googled the cover and was under the impression that the model was meant to serve specifically as Tally. My mistake! _


	4. Eleven

"Grace, for the last time, get _up!_"

I opened my eyes obediently, then realized how bright it was and shrieked a little before flinging the blankets over my head. My temple pounded for a few long seconds. Okay, it _cannot_ be time for Mom and Dad to leave already. I didn't even stay up late last night! How fair-missing is this?

Mom's voice floated through my open door again, only half-muffled through the layer of fabric cocooning my face. "Grace!"

Ugh. Her voice was half-sharp already, that tone that made other people jump like she'd shocked fear straight into them. Me and Dad were more used to it. He hardly even noticed; I knew it meant that I was almost in Mega-Helen Trouble.

"Grace, I hope you know that I can still ping Shay if you don't—"

I shot up before she even finished her sentence, scrambling to shove the blankets away and to get out of bed without tripping over them or my feet. For the record, it didn't exactly work. My knees hit the floor with a soft _thump_, but I still managed to scream, "I'M UP!" out into the hall. Getting off the floor was a bigger problem. I did find the time to yell, in between rubbing my poor sore knees and praying that my head would stop throbbing, "I can _hear_ you guys laughing, you know!"

Not that it stopped them.

Only wobbling a little, I didn't bother putting on regular clothes when I finally got to my feet, just tugged my jacket on over my pajamas. Winter was so freeze-making. I skidded out into the hallway, keeping my speed until I got to the kitchen. Dad was leaning on the table, in the middle of rolling his eyes at Mom. I bumped my hip against the counter, flinging my arm up so that the sleeve of my jacket (which used to be Dad's, until I started wearing it more and more and now it's just sort of mine) slipped to my elbow.

"A-wake!" I said in sing-song, falling out of my dramatic pose and hopping up to sit on the countertop.

Mom snorted. "With a whole thirty seconds to spare."

"But I'm _awake._" I grinned at her. I really shouldn't mention my attention-grabbing headache right now. It was probably from how she woke me up, anyway. Like I needed to give Mom and Dad any reason _not_ to go today. But still, Mom's hand went up to finger her earlobe, like she could already hear Shay's voice there, saying that she would come over...

Dad walked over and kissed me on the top of the head. I tried not to make a face. "I think we're ready," he said pointedly, then reached over and put Mom's hand back by her side. She ended up being the one to make a face at him. I giggled, pulling my jacket even tighter over me. Ugh, I couldn't wait for summertime. No more feeling shivery.

"Yeah, you're ready," I said. "Totally and utterly. Completely."

"You get your subtlety from you mother," Dad said. "Tally?"

I sighed. _Here we go again. _

This time it only took Mom about fifteen minutes to describe _just_ how much trouble I was going to be in if she and Dad came back to find anything in the house broken/decimated/burned to ashes. Then Dad stepped in to repeat the _exact _way to ping Shay from the wallscreen in their bedroom, with Mom adding the vital, "Unless you are bleeding, broken, or dying, then don't do it. Emergencies _only._"

They only stopped when I helpfully pointed to the little clock in the wallscreen's corner. It was written in numbers, of course, but Dad had been teaching me to tell time on a weird Rusty clock with little dashes and stuff. Mom cursed, then, in the same breath, leaned over and kissed me.

"We have to go," she said, like Dad was keeping her waiting, but he was right beside her and she really, really looked like she didn't want to leave. Dad took her arm and half-guided, half-pulled her out to the living room, me trailing behind them. I shivered again. Maybe once they left I could turn up the temperature thingy in the hall…

Right when Mom was grabbing a bag of what looked like some kind of clothes from beside the door, I thought of something. "You guys are taking your hoverboards?"

"Yep," Mom said, popping the 'p.'

"And no," Dad went on, before I even had time to continue, "we aren't having that argument again."

"Ugh!" I speared a hand through my hair, wincing when my fingers caught on all the tangles and at the way it made my head throb all over again. "Come on, Dad,_ please?_"

"Not a chance," Mom answered for him. She hesitated for a second, then kissed me again, her hair tickling my cheek. "When you're older."

"Yeah, a _crumbly,_" I muttered. What was so wrong with wanting my own hoverboard? Not even one of the special, lifting-fans ones that Mom and Dad had, just a nice, normal hoverboard, instead of my littlie one that didn't go up past Mom's hip and wouldn't let me ride too far away from the house. If I tried, it was like hitting a wall— a soft, spongy, basically harmless wall, but one I couldn't pass through no matter how hard I threw myself against it.

Very frustration-making.

I only stopped thinking about my imaginary hoverboard when Dad pulled open the door, Mom hitching their bag over her shoulder and muttering something about veins of metal. Whatever. I hugged Dad, not minding when he absently undid a few of the tangles in my hair with his fingers.

"You know the rules," he reminded me when I unlaced my arms from around him, shoving my still-shivery hands into the pockets of my jacket. I nodded, biting my lip. _Go, already!_

Of course, when I was still looking for my other shoe or my favorite shirt, they were right out the door in about three seconds, but _now… _

I hugged Mom too, leaning back enough to see her flash tattoos pick up a little. Their bag was pressed against the side of my head, the part that seemed like it was pounding in time with Mom's tattoos. _Ow. _I finally stepped back again, the heat of Mom's hands still on my back. There was a weird look on her face, but Dad had her hand and tugged her slightly through the door.

"Be _good,_" she reminded me.

"I _will._"

Dad waved goodbye when they got to the grass outside. I waved back, watching him pull two folded-together hoverboards out of the bag. (What all did they _have _in there, anyway?) Faster than I thought anyone could, they unfolded them and hopped on, not even bothering with crash bracelets. They never did.

My parents, the rebels.

The lifting fans whirred softly as they rose up. I shivered again, this time more from creepiness than from cold. That was the one part I always hated about those boards— whenever Mom and Dad were on them, playing around or racing or whatever, I always thought that one day they might not notice I was underneath as they went down…

Yeah. Scary-making.

Mom and Dad hovered higher and higher, until it would have been easy for Dad to reach out and touch the roof of the house. I waved again, jumping a little to make sure they could see me. Mom waved back, and, while I watched, they took off into the trees, turning just enough to stop the branches from hitting them, but without falling off their boards.

I can't _wait _to do that.

I stood in the grass, still shivering, until I couldn't hear the whirof the lifting fans. The grey clouds everywhere made everything look paler, and tiny pinpricks of rain started dotting my face. I laughed out loud— Mom and Dad would _not _be icy about this. How luck-missing for them. I turned around and ran back to the door before the rain could get any worse, flinging it closed behind me with a bang.

_Yes!_

* * *

I guess I should be honest and say that, actually, I really have no idea what Mom and Dad do for work. These, though, are the things I _do_ know about their job:

They don't have to go places very often, because mostly they're at home with me. When they do leave, it's usually to far-away places. It has something to do with all the cities all over the world.

It is Very Important.

People listen to them about things.

Today, they're only going a few cities away.

I am officially old enough to be left alone.

No Shay, no Grandma Maddy, not even Andrew or Fausto or any of Mom and Dad's other friends.

Should I repeat?

"Yes!" I shrieked, grinning because I knew I wouldn't get yelled at to be quiet. Why? Because Mom and Dad were _gone! _Not that I don't love them or anything— but I think this is, like, a milestone or something. Even if they did repeat the rules to me about a dozen times.

Still: I was _alone!_

I spun in a circle, then winced. Alone, with a huge headache. And did it suddenly get hotter in here? I peeled off my jacket, throwing it onto the couch. Whatever. I could reset the temperature thingy if I had to. It was another feature on the wallscreen in Mom and Dad's room, the one I was only supposed to ping Shay on if it was an emergency. You'd think they'd want me pinging them… but Dad doesn't have anything to get pings _on, _and Mom has to turn all her stuff off before she goes into a bunch of secure building or something.

Apparently, other cities don't trust Mom very much.

Go figure.

I skipped into the kitchen. It wasn't that I was hungry— my stomach felt too jumpy for me to eat. It was just so… _quiet._ Kina has a younger brother and she told me that he makes all kinds of noise, but usually in my house it's Mom and Dad talking or arguing about something stupid or making fun of each other (in a nice kinda way). They do it all in the kitchen, too. I think half of our stuff just exists in the kitchen now, all three of us spend so much time here.

That's why it was easy for me to rummage around on the counter until I found a book to read. All of Kina's books are on the city interface, and she can pull them up on the wallscreen in her bedroom whenever she wants to read (which isn't all that often). But I have actual books— like, in bindings and everything. Dad said it's 'cause for a long time nobody went inside all the old Rusty buildings, but then something happened to make them want to, and a few of them were _totally _filled up with books. Most of them just got transferred over to the interface, he told me, and the actual books got given away to whoever wanted them.

Mom and Dad, for the record, wanted.

Book under my arm, I wandered down the hall, to my room. The bed looked utterly comfort-making. I flopped down onto it, not bothering to grab the blankets off the floor from where I'd thrown them when I first woke up. I would fix it all later.

It was only when I flipped over to my back, propping my head up on the pillow, that I realized how totally bogus the rain thudding against the window across from my bed was. No rain, and I could _definitely _do some exploring. I'd been wondering for a long time if you could walk to Diego from our house…

Right on cue, lightning cracked in a bright flash.

No exploring for me.

(It would _so_ not surprise me if Mom and Dad planned this.)

I flicked through the pages, stopping a few before the one I'd marked. I tended to lose books in the mess that was the kitchen— as if I remembered what'd been happening the last time I opened this one. But it was a luck-making day, and the book was easy to slip back into, even if my head _did _keep pounding with every sentence. It was a good thing I hadn't dragged the blankets up, too; I was _way_ hot. Maybe it was humidity or something.

The rain turned into a weird kind of background music, even though it didn't do anything to stop my head from hurting. Oh well. And I don't even know how many chapters I got through, or how long I'd been lying there, before the words I was reading started to blur into a mess of quotes and beasts and darkness and weird-named planets. No idea why I was so tired… I _did _go to bed early last night…

_The rain, _I guessed blearily, yawning. My fingers slipped out of the book's pages, and it fell beside me with a muffled bump against the mattress. I turned, curling up into a ball, loving the way sleep was dulling my headache— even if I _was _still boiling…

* * *

_Ping._

Ugh. _Totally_ too sleepy for this, here.

_Ping._

What was making that stupid, brain-missing sound, anyway?

_Ping._

"Shut up, ping-la," I mumbled. Shay called me Grace-la most of the time. I guess I was picking it up. I lifted my arm, reaching around for blankets to block out the noise, but remembered they were still on the floor. More ugh.

_Ping._

Was it just me, or was the pinging getting more insistent?

"Al_right,_" I groaned, forcing my eyes open and propping myself up on my elbows. Bad move. It felt like my head was being attacked by nanos. "Owww." I cringed. Not fun-making. The ping sounded again, from down the hall. How long was I asleep?

Rain was still thudding against the window. I swung my legs over the bed, a slow-motion repeat of this morning, and clutched my head in one hand. I guess it was a good thing I didn't have the blankets to cover myself with— I was still hot. Weird. I padded out of my room and towards the annoying pings, still wondering just how much time I'd wasted sleeping.

_Sigh. Of course. _The pings were coming from the wallscreen in Mom and Dad's room. I walked inside their bedroom and stood in front of it, rubbing my temple sharply while I tried to figure out how to turn it _off. _It wasn't exactly doing wonders for my head.

"Oh, _obvious,_" I muttered. Duh. It was pinging because there was a message on the screen that Mom and Dad (evidently) wanted me to see. Genius-moment, Grace. It took another second for me to rub the sleep out of my eyes so I could read the plain, automated script scrawled across the screen:

_Grace,_

_Time to eat lunch. There's SpagBol on the kitchen table (unfortunately). Also, change of plans— we'll be home about an hour earlier than we thought. Remember not to break anything or accidentally kill yourself while we're gone._

_Love you,_

_Mom & Dad_

I rolled my eyes when I finished reading. It was _way_ too easy to tell which of them had written each part, especially when Mom still thought it was some kind of cruel twist of fate that SpagBol was my favorite food ever. It was just so _good… _

But did they really have to remind me it was time to eat lunch? Really?

"What am I, five?" I muttered, tapping the screen to minimize the message. With a final soft ping, it did. I yawned, scrubbing my hair back from my face, and drifted back out into the hall and down to the kitchen. True to their word, there was a container of SpagBol balanced on the edge of the table. Barely thinking about it, I started to heat it up, waiting for the noodles to go soft. I tried to calculate times in my head. If it was lunch, it must be around noon… and Mom and Dad were _going _to be home at seven tonight, but now I guess it was six… and I was _still_ tired. Huh. Maybe after I ate I could take another nap.

"Or maybe slam my head against a wall," I thought out loud, after flinching at the _ding _that let me know my SpagBol was done. I shuffled over to find a fork to eat with, my headache throbbing from deep in my brain the entire way there. Stupid headaches.

"If it's not gone in an hour," I promised myself out loud, because Mom had weirdly good hearing and so usually I could only think stuff instead of saying it, "I'll take some med-nanos."

Those were in the bathroom, in one of the cabinets. I'd never taken any before, but Mom and Dad kept them around just in case. I didn't really get sick a lot (for whatever reason, Grandma Maddy's totally convinced it has something to do with however Mom fed me when I was a baby). Too bad I was kind of breaking that record as I slurped my SpagBol at the table. Did a headache even really _count _as sick?

"Who cares?" I asked the empty room around a mouthful of noodles. I just wanted it to go _away. _

I finished lunch and went back to my room, stopping to turn down the heat on the temperature-thingy in the hallway. It was so _hot, _I couldn't stop shivering from it. Did that make sense? Probably not. You weren't supposed to shiver when it was hot.

I crawled into bed again, not bothering with the blankets. They'd still be there in awhile.

Rain was still lashing against the window when I drifted off to sleep for the second time today.

* * *

_Ow. _

My eyes fluttered open. _Ow, ow, ow… _"Head," I mumbled, squeezing them shut again. "_Ow._"

I couldn't really grasp any other words. I sat up in bed, thinking, _I cannot have slept that long. _It felt like I'd barely laid down a few minutes ago.

I kept my eyes closed until I'd managed to slide off the bed, even if my legs were shaking a little. Didn't matter. They just had to last me to till I could grab the med-nanos. I peeled my lids open again. For a second the whole world spun wildly, bursts of light clouding my vision.

"Mega-weird," I groaned, pressing the heels of my hands over my face. That just made my head hurt more. "Mega-mega-weird. Double mega-weird. Triple weird. Ugh."

It felt like the blankets I hadn't bothered picking up were wrapped around my brain. I stumbled down the hall, into the bathroom, and ignored the light switch inside. Like any more light would help my head. But I had a total mind-blank on which cabinet the med-nanos were in. The left one? Or the middle one? But which shelf?

"Crap." Look, I was using Mom's favorite word. I bent down on my hands and knees, opening doors and shoving random stuff to the side. They were in a little box, right?

"Oh, _icy,_" I whispered, grabbing at the tiny grey box with the med-cross symbol on the side. I stood up, wavering a little, and panted. Maybe I hadn't turned the heat down enough. Good thing I'd taken off my jacket awhile ago, even if I couldn't remember exactly when.

I flipped the lid open, my fingers diving between the little packets of pills. Headache, headache, where's the headache ones— "Go Grace," I murmured, fisting my hand around the cellophane that was wrapped around two tiny, dull red pills. "Success." I dropped the rest of the box onto the counter, hearing the rustle of stomach-bug pills and fever-pills and toothache-pills. Grandma Maddy kept us well-stocked.

I didn't bother to find a cup, just turned the water on in the sink and cupped my hands under it. The world was spinning again. I tossed the pills onto my palms, water sloshing through my fingers, and raised it all to my mouth. I barely felt them go down my throat when I swallowed.

I used my wrist to wipe my lips off, scrubbing damp hands over my pajamas while I leaned heavily against the counter. How long did it take for them to start working? Now that I wasn't intent on fixing it, the throbbing in my head was back, and worse.

"Sleep'll help," I decided groggily. How was I still tired, anyway? Whatever. I left the bathroom and walked back down the hallway, only having to catch myself on the wall once. Stuff kept blurring. I was getting hotter. And more shivery. Was it possible to be hot and shivery at once?

"I manage it," I said to myself, and laughed. It made me shiver violently, but it was still a laugh.

I flipped my pillow over after I curled up in bed again— even it was too hot. My hair was sticking to the back of my neck. The rain, thrumming against my window, kept time with my _still_-there, totally un-icy headache. "Go _away,_" I ordered, but couldn't tell if the words actually made it out of my mouth.

I was_ so_ tired…

* * *

_No. Nonononono. I can't be awake. No._

But I was. With a jolt to my head and one huge shiver all over, I was awake. Again. I didn't want to be awake. Why did I have to be awake? I wanted to _sleep. _And this time there was no pinging to wake me up— it was just _me._

_Perfect. Fabulous. Bubbly. Icy. _

I tried to prop myself up on my elbows again, but they wavered and then dropped. I was too heavy. I felt too heavy, at least. Ow-making. Ew-making.

"Get _up,_" I moaned, but the words did a fail job of sparking my body into action. My muscles felt like they were thrumming from the inside out. Weird. Mega-Helen weird. Was it almost time for Mom and Dad to come home? I hoped. Wanted. Whichever. _Ow. _

Why was my headache not gone? It was _worse. _Where was the fair in that? Not opening my eyes (what if everything started spinning again?), I carefully slid my legs to the side, waiting until they hit the solid floor before even trying to lift the rest of me. I was too hot to be doing this. It wasn't just my muscles— everything in me was whirring like the lifting fans on Mom and Dad's hoverboards.

Super-weird. Weird-making. Unweird-missing. Hurting.

Finally, I was standing up. I opened my eyes without thinking, and my vision tilted sharply. _Dizzy-making. Literally. _I grabbed the edge of the bed to hold myself up, wondering why I hadn't set the temperature lower. It was _boiling. _Wasn't it supposed to be winter?

"Oh,_ totally_ icy time to get sick," I muttered, not moving from where I was half-crouched next to the bed. This sucked. This mega-sucked. Why did everything have to be _spinning?_

Should I…

"_Unless you are bleeding, broken, or dying, then don't do it. Emergencies _only_."_

"I _feel _like dying. Does that count?" I asked out loud, like Mom or Dad would magically answer me. Obviously, there wasn't any answer, except for my suddenly really-loud breathing. That whirring feeling inside me was getting worse.

"Rock-paper-scissors?" I wondered, for some reason thinking of the game Andrew had taught me a few months ago when we were visiting him and Lily and Mary. What a weird name. Mary. Mare-ee. She was aw-making, though. Totally adorable. She was such a littlie that she couldn't even pronounced the 'r' in my name.

Andrew said the littlies in his village used rock-paper-scissors to decide stuff. Whatever scissors were, anyway. Ping Shay or don't ping Shay… emergency or no emergency…

_Maybe I'm just hungry. _

Right. Yeah. Maybe I just needed a snack. SpagBol was good and everything, but maybe there was something else I could eat. That would make me feel better.

Now I just had to walk to the kitchen.

I braced myself, then stood straight up. Lights burst across my vision like they had earlier, clouding everything. The floor tilted underneath my feet. "Dizzy-making," I said weakly. "Totally. Dizzy-making."

Okay. The kitchen was farther than Mom and Dad's room. If I was fine when I reached their room, I could make it to the kitchen. If only that stupid humming inside me would cut it out. All it was doing was making me hotter and hotter— I wouldn't be all that surprised if I looked into a mirror and my face was flushed entirely red.

It was easy to make it out of my room. Ish. I didn't fall over from all the tilting everything was doing, anyway. Stuff kept changing places, though, and making me almost trip. Stupid place-changing stuff. I wish I remembered where my ponytail holder was… now I was kinda starting to feel bad about saying no when Mom asked if I wanted my hair cut. It kept sticking to my forehead and neck. Not doing all that good for all that heat. Maybe I messed up and turned the temperature up instead of down…

"Or maybe I'm just _sick,_" I muttered, grabbing the wall of the hallway with all five fingers to keep from tilting too far forward and landing on my face. Okay. Okay, I was wrong. Totally wrong, I was totally sick, and _crap _was it getting hard to walk. Nothing would stop _spinning. _

The gentle hum from the wallscreen drew me towards Mom and Dad's room. Shay. Shay could help, Shay always knew how to help. And even if it turned out not to be that big of a deal, she wouldn't tell Mom and Dad about me pinging her if I asked her not to. They'd never leave me alone again if I couldn't deal with it.

Even from just inside Mom and Dad's room, I could still hear the rain pounding on the outside of the house. Of course. How did my book start? _It was a dark and stormy night. _Well, it wasn't night, but it was dark and stormy— close enough. Of course I get sick when it's dark and stormy. What other atmosphere would work?

"Send ping, send ping, send ping," I chanted under my breath, trying to see past all the wobbling the wallscreen was doing and all the blooms of fuzziness in front of my eyes. My fingers trailed over the options, finally lighting on the little ping symbol in the corner. The speakers on the sides of the screen asked me in a calm, soothing voice who I wanted to ping.

It wasn't as soothing as Mom's sharp, scaring-people voice.

"Shay," I told it. My voice sounded small and tinny. I tried again. "_Shay, _please_._"

"Message?" the screen asked pleasantly.

"Um." I hadn't exactly gotten that far. I tried to push past whatever was clogging up my mind, and only ended up shivering again. I leaned against the screen, not quite able to help myself. I was so tired of everything _moving._

"Message?" it repeated.

"I'm sick!" I burst out, then grabbed at my head. My next word came out as a wail: "_Ouch!_" Okay. Got it. Talk too loud, hurt head. Talk too much, hurt head. Move, hurt head. Right. Okay. Icy. "Please, Shay," I babbled into the speakers, not even sure if it had already sent my ping, "my head hurts so bad and I'm all shivery and hot and _dizzy_ and I—"

"Grace-la?"

I jumped. Shay's voice was one of those that I would recognize _anywhere,_ like Mom's and Dad's and Grandma Maddy's, because I'd been hearing it since I was born. But I still said, "Shay?" wincing and trying to keep my head away from the speakers and talk into them at the same time. That lifting-fan whir inside my muscles, inside my bones, was getting worse, making my cheeks burn fire-hot.

"Yeah, it's me," Shay's voice trilled through the speakers. "What's up, Grace-la? Are Tally and— I mean, are your Mom and Dad home?"

"Uh-uh," I said, shaking my head even though some part of me knew she couldn't see it. The motion made the spinning all that much worse. Everything slowed for a second. "I— hold on, Shay, hold on, I have to sit down."

"What? Why do have to sit down?"

I slid down the wall underneath the speakers, breathing as evenly as I could. It felt like some brain-missing bug was gnawing at me form the inside out. "I can't stand up, Shay, I'm too dizzy. Okay. Okay, I'm down. Still dizzy. But down."

"Grace, what are talking about?" Shay demanded. I could practically see her face on the other side of our conversation, furrowed and half-worried and Mom-ish. "What do you mean you're dizzy?"

"Everything's… spinning. I tripped in the hall. And my room. I just woke up. Well, again. But I'm still tired. Really tired." My breaths were small and tight by the end of my sentence. It made my head pound.

"Crap, Grace, you mean you're sick?"

"I… I think." My skin was definitely going to peel itself off my body any second down. Utterly. A slick of heat ran down my spine, and I tried not to cry. Ew-feeling. That's what it was.

"Okay, look," Shay's voice said. It sounded far-away. "Did you take any— damn, Fausto, shut up! I'm talking to Grace —any med-nanos?"

It took me a second to figure out what she was asking. I closed my eyes, hoping it would help all the tilting Mom and Dad's room seemed to be doing. "For my head. But I'm hot, too. Really hot. Mega-hot."

Shay let out a long breath. It hissed into my ears from the speakers above, and I winced again. She cursed softly. "Are you shivering?"

"Yeah." Just the word made me, my arms vibrating where I'd wrapped them around my knees. They were doing that inside me, too. Vibrating. Over and over and over. "Yeah, I'm shivering. Shay, what do I do?"

There were a few more curses. Mom always snapped at Shay for talking like that around me. I could hear another voice, distantly, in the background. Must be Fausto. What were him and Shay doing together? "Grace-la? Look, I'm going to ping Tall— crap, I mean, your parents, okay?"

_No! They won't ever leave me alone again if they know I got _sick _when they did! Don't, Shay, please, just tell me what to do and what med-nanos to take—_

None of those words seemed to want to come out of my mouth. There was that inside-vibrating again, rocking my bones, and there was nothing I wanted to do more than jump up and run around and get this weird feeling out of my skin. "O…kay," I finally whispered, tilting my head back so the speakers would be sure to catch it. "But Shay?"

There was a pause. "Yeah?"

"Should I take some med-nanos for… fever? I have one, right?"

It sure _felt _like I did. "Are you hot?" she asked. "Like, not-normal hot?"

I nodded, squeaked when my head got jammed through with pain, then remembered she couldn't see me. "Uh-huh. I turned the temperature down earlier but… I'm still really…"

I didn't get to finish my sentence. "Go do that, then. And just— just lay down for awhile, okay? I'm pinging your Mom and Dad, and you know they'll hurry up and come back if you're sick."

For whatever reason, that made me relax a little. "I know."

Shay's voice was getting slower, unfurling like a ribbon from the speakers. "I gotta go. Take fever-nanos and try to sleep, alright?"

"Al…right." Sleep sounded great. Sleep sounded fun-making.

"Icy," Shay said approvingly. "'Bye, Grace-la. I hope you feel better."

I only managed to muster up the words "Me too" after she was gone.

* * *

I stumbled back into the bathroom, so incredibly thankful I hadn't bothered putting the med-nanos back in the cabinet. As if I would be able to find them again. It took me forever to grab the ones for fever, though— my fingers kept slipping and sliding over them. It think it was because my hands were shaking. Or maybe the spinning the whole world was doing was just getting smaller. I don't know.

This time the pills tasted downright disgusting as I swallowed, but maybe that was because I didn't get enough water. I didn't care very much either way. Water, no water, I'd still take them. I wondered if Shay was talking to Mom right then. It made my shaking ease up the smallest bit. Still, if it wasn't for the doorframe, I would have fallen to my knees right outside my room; my legs wouldn't hold me up anymore. It took three tries before I could stand again, and even then I wavered with every step.

The blankets stayed on the floor. Like I could find the energy to reach down and pull them up, and even if I could, I wasn't so sure they would stay in my shaking hands. My arms were shaking too, actually. Huh. Weird. Maybe med-nanos made you do that.

_Hope they help, _I thought vaguely, shoving my pillow away. Too hot. _Headache ones didn't…_

_Hope Mom and Dad get back soon. _Who cares if they never leave me alone again. If they make me feel better…

_Hope I stop shaking…_

_Hope this gets better soon…_

"Hope I sleep," I said out loud, the words slurring. Were my lips shaking too? I tried to press my fingers there, but I was too tired to raise my arm. That gnawing feeling was back again, but doubled, making me wish I could run and skip and jump and flip just to _stop _it.

But I couldn't.

All I could do was sleep.

* * *

"…can do that, right?"

You know how sometimes you wake up, but slowly, so everything takes a minute to register in your brain?

"...of course I can, what do you…"

Even other people moving, so there's one long moment when if someone puts their hand on your face, you just feel the heat from their palm, not realizing it's actually their hand there?

"…_yes, _it's over one hundred, I _think _I would…"

Even voices. Especially people's voices.

Suddenly the pressure slipped off my forehead, making the band of my headache snap tight.

"…then we should take her to my mom, or else it…"

_Mom. _The words stuck in my throat. _Dad. _

_Open your eyes. Come on, Grace, don't be stupid. Open _up.

My eyelids fluttered.

"…but Shay said she already took…"

"…and just look how well _that's_ working…"

_Work with me here, vocal cords. That'd be icy. _

"Mom? Dad?"

My voice was soft and raspy. Talking louder would only make my head pound more. I forced my eyes all the way open— the colors were way too bright. But that only made it easier to see Mom and Dad standing beside my bed, blurry, yeah, but they were _there. _

I narrowed my eyes. It made the ever-present spinning slow down a little. Were they wearing… sneak suits?

_What? _

Maybe this was a dream. Oh well. Dream-Mom and Dream-Dad— I'd take what I could get.

Mom's (Dream-Mom's?) hand came up to my face… again? Or was that dreaming, too? This time really didn't _feel _like a dream… "Grace?" she asked, like she didn't quite believe I'd actually said anything.

"Ye…ah," I drawled. Maybe this is what I would sound like drunk. Except you aren't allowed champagne until you're sixteen. Too bad. I blinked. It made everything come into focus for a few seconds, then fade back to soft blurs. I noticed, a little late, that one of them had picked up my blankets and put them over me. Great. I struggled, trying to push them off, but my kicks only moved a few inches. Too weak. Try again. But it was making me too hot to try again…

"Here," Dad said from my other side, and all of a sudden I was hit with cool air. Better. Mega-better. My lips rounded out the word "thanks," but I couldn't get it out. Didn't matter. They were already talking to each other again, overlapping sentences and thoughts— or maybe my brain was just being extra-slow.

"Mom could help," Dad pointed out. Mom. Mom? _Grandma Maddy. Oh. _Right. Dad has parents, too. Or did. No dad. Wonder what happened to him.

"It's not that serious," Mom argued. "She took fever-nanos. Remember?"

She. Me. Grace. Got it.

"I don't think it's just a fever."

"Don't be stupid, David."

"Look at her, Tally. She's—"

"Mom?"

I had been working on saying the word for a few minutes, but it shocked me too when I actually did. Both of them turned towards me instantly. I shivered again, the heat that wouldn't go away stretching hot fingers over my skin.

"I—" _Can't find the words. _I struggled up, panting, hair sticking to my face. One elbow held me up, but barely. _Come on. _Raised my arm, even though it felt weighted down. "Look," I managed, and showed her the tiny tremors of my shaking hand.

Mom froze. I couldn't think of another word for it inside my blurred, slow-motion mind. Her eyes went wide, her lips parting like she couldn't help herself. The longer I held up my hand, the more violently it shook, but Mom didn't seem like she could look away any time soon— staring at the tiny shakes like they weren't even on _my_ hand, on _my_ body.

"_Tally._"

I'd never heard a sharper word from Dad before.

"She's your _daughter._"

Mom's eyes snapped over to his, then squeezed shut. "I _know_," she said, sounding like the words were being ripped out of her throat.

"We're taking her to my mom's." No question. My hand fell back to the bed, my arm utterly exhausted from holding it up for what couldn't have been even a minute. Suddenly it didn't matter— there was another, larger arm under my knees, and one under my shoulders, and then Dad was holding me, the motion rocking my head and making it swim with hurt.

"Boards or car?" Mom asked, but it sounded faint.

"Hovercar. Not as fast, but safer. And cooler." He punctuated the sentence with a brush over my forehead with his fingers. It made the outside-shaking and inside-shaking my body was doing still a millisecond.

Hovercar sounded good. Going to Grandma Maddy's… she was a surgeon. She knew meds. She could help. She knew what I needed.

Dad moving down the hall and outside, where rain still dotted random spots on my cheeks, made my eyes slip closed. Dad hardly ever tripped over stuff. Mom didn't either, actually. Graceful parents… ironic, named Grace… My eyes were slipping closed again with every step. It couldn't be healthy to sleep this much.

Still though. In the hovercar, my head in her lap, I was pretty sure I heard Mom whisper, "I'm _so_ sorry," right before I finally fell asleep.

* * *

I felt, first. Something was cinched tight around my upper arm, giving off a soft soothing hum as it clenched and released over my skin. One long piece of hair was curled over my cheek in some shape I couldn't name, but tried to trace backwards behind my eyelids. There was a thin blanket settled just under my arms, but it wasn't making me hot.

It was that kind of stuff I felt for I don't even know how long. Stuff that was already touching me. It was only when the tips of my fingers started tingling that I realized my hands weren't shaking anymore— they were numb. Or had been numb, anyway. Feeling was coming back there, in tiny, tiny inches, until I could wiggle them just slightly enough to know I was lying on another, thicker blanket.

_Excellent. _

But even that one thought was slow, stretching on and on until it finished running through my head. Like my whole entire brain had collapsed into a tiny pinprick of a tunnel, and words had to work hard to squeeze themselves through it.

Then came the sounds. I guess, actually, those were always there, and I was just now taking notice. The hum from whatever was on my arm, of course. The steady in-out of my breathing, which was much easier to accomplish than it had been earlier, when it felt like my head was going to cave in from all the pressure on it. And the soft swish of what might have been bare feet on the floor around me, wherever I was.

_Grandma Maddy's. Dad said so. _

Those sentences came more quickly through the pinprick than the one word before, widening it by force. They sparked my memories of the day, shoving more and more thoughts through that tunnel, cracking the foundation of it.

_My headache. I was sleepy. Med-nanos, and pinging Shay. More med-nanos. Sleep again. Hot, hot, more hot, finally Mom and Dad. My hand shaking. In the hovercar. Sleeping again, but black. Did I… pass out? _

"Grace? Grace, are you awake?"

Grandma Maddy. Her voice was high above my ear, like she was standing over me. I tried to heave my lids up, drag my eyes open, but whatever was wrong with me still tied them too tight. The thing on my arm beeped softly.

"Her heart rate went up."

There was another slither of feet on smart-matter floor.

"So, what? She heard you?"

Mom's voice made something in me loosen. Somehow, it was comforting, knowing that even if I couldn't see her, she was still solidly _there._ _But what about—_

"It means she reacted, Tally."

Dad's voice was a lull. I could practically see their hands together, Mom's delicate skin almost covered by the scars and rough patches that littered Dad's.

"So?" Mom snapped. "What good is that if she's not awake?"

"It's better than not reacting at all," Grandma Maddy pointed out, while all I wanted to do was be able to scream, _yes, I'm awake, please stop freaking out! I'm just too tired to open my eyes or my mouth to let you guys know!_

But I had to stop being tired sometime. Right?

Mom's voice went sharp, knife points stabbing satin. "Why the hell is she even unconscious? No one passes out from a fever. No one." There was the smallest hesitation. Ha— so I_ did _pass out. "Maddy… please tell me there's a small percentage of the population who commonly pass out from fevers."

Against the blackness of my closed eyes, I etched out Grandma Maddy's soft smile, the fine lines around her mouth caving in just slightly. "She didn't pass out from the fever, Tally."

"Then _what?_" Mom exploded, a thousand kinds of frustration. Dad putting his hand on her knee to calm her down was a given, even if I wasn't exactly capable of seeing it. I wondered, vaguely, if they knew I could predict them this well. I think all kids can, with their parents.

"Mom?" Dad prompted. The piece of whatever around my arm constricted again, it's humming picking up.

More feet moving to, I imagined in my head, stand closer to Mom and Dad. I still wasn't sure exactly where I was. The bedroom? The living room? Maybe this wasn't Grandma Maddy's house at all. My insides froze over for a second. What if it was the actual… you know… _hospital? _

_There would totally be more people, _I assured myself, noting almost absently how much faster my thoughts came than when I first woke up. If you could use that term when I still couldn't muster up enough energy to open my eyes. But now my palms were tingling, not just my fingers— everything un-numbing itself.

I noticed then that I had missed part of Grandma Maddy's answer. "—having a flashback to the first time we met," she finished dryly. "Try searching back around twenty years."

She must mean Mom. Lying completely still (but _definitely_ not by choice) on the bed, I tried the math. Mom's thirty four, I know; she and Shay have the same birthday, so it's easy to keep track. Minus twenty is fourteen. What?

"_Eightteen_, thank you very much," Mom muttered. "But whatever. What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

Eighteen, fourteen, twenty— sixteen? Something like that. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, was when Mom and Grandma Maddy met each other. Okay. Got it. My brain still wasn't moving quite fast enough to keep up with the entire conversation. Too many different voices…

"—remember?" Grandma Maddy's voice came, fainter now that I'd been busy trying to work all the math out. "I promise it didn't change. When I tested you, a couple of years before Grace was born, you and Shay and that other young man— it all showed up on screen the same."

_It's like a black hole, _I decided about them talking. _It just sucks you in even if you can't figure out how it got to where it is._

"Which part?" Dad asked. My palms suddenly felt the scratch of the blanket. The tingles moved up my arms.

There was a sigh. "Immunodeficiency. Their immune systems."

_I will keep up with what they're talking about. I will keep up with what they're talking about. _

"And?" Mom snapped. I wanted to wince, but it would have taken too much work. I hated that tone.

"If you will _listen,_" Grandma Maddy answered, sounding more irritated than I'd ever heard her before. Dad murmured Mom's name again before she went on. "I took into account the isolation chamber you told me about. They repeatedly gassed you, didn't they?"

_Headache formation… now. _

They _gassed_ Mom?!

"Like I said. It didn't work."

"Exactly." Grandma Maddy sounded strangely proud of Mom saying that. Weird. "Because Specials are surgically given such strong immune systems."

A half-memory whipped through my mind's eye:

"_What kind of surge?" _

_There was a long pause. "A special kind."_

The tingling crawled up my arms and strung across the length of my shoulders. A special kind.

Or a _Special_ kind?

"We all know the details of that, thanks," Mom said, her voice an octave higher than normal. "Trust me."

Dad finally spoke up again. "You told me that they were genetically enhanced, that way."

I pretended I knew for a fact Grandma Maddy nodded, but with Rusty-metal weights on my lids, I knew it was only guessing. "That's the point. That's why recent Specials are so much more lethal than before— even fifty years ago, you don't even know how difficult it was to modify huge groups of genes like that."

I think Mom answered that one. I'm not sure.

_Lethal? _

_A special kind. Specials— lethal. _

_My mom._

No way. No _way _was Mom… _lethal. _I mean, maybe pretty close when it took three or four calls for me to listen and come inside from the woods around our house, but… no. Never. Mom wasn't _dangerous. _

"Please, remind me what exactly this has to do with _Grace,_" Mom bit out. The tingles that rolled over the numbness of every limb I had and left it lying flat on its back was inching over my stomach. I flexed my hands experimentally. "Last I checked, fevers and unconsciousness didn't really relate to Special surge and gene mods."

"It does," Grandma Maddy contradicted quietly.

"_How?_"

"Because—" Grandma Maddy started to snap back, finally unnerved, but Dad took over.

"Because, Tally," he sighed, "you pass your genes on to your children."

Genes. Okay. I had some from Mom and Dad. Great. But I could _almost _completely move. At least Mom wasn't being talked about as _lethal _again. Still, I kept one ear on whatever the three grownups were talking about, feeling the tightness on my arm compress for the ninth, tenth, eleventh time.

"—and part from David," Grandma Maddy finished. I squeezed my thighs together, and they moved easily. _Yes. _"Think about it, Tally," she coaxed. "A natural immune system, and one genetically modified to throw out anything non-generic, created in a lab. What do you think their daughter ends up with?"

_An icy rebound, _I thought, feeling the tingles vine around my legs, easing away the remaining numbness.

"…to get the fever in the first place?" Mom demanded, making no sense when I hadn't been paying attention to the beginning. "That's _crap. _Who the hell is susceptible to _natural _bacteria, but fights off meds?"

I curled my toes together, the sensation grabbing at me. Nothing hurt when I moved. Nothing weighted was attached to my bones.

I blinked open bleary eyes. Everything fluttered, then stayed perfectly still.

"Your daughter is," Grandma Maddy said.

"What about me?" I asked groggily, and used up my first new burst of energy to grin up at the bright white ceiling.

* * *

"So, basically," I summarized, batting irritably at the cord that snaked out of the crook of my elbow, "I can get sick, but I can't get better."

"Stop that," Dad said, unhooking my fingers from the cord, at the same time Mom answered, "_Yes,_ you can get better. Just… without med-nanos to help it along."

"That sounds… pain-making." I grimaced, sitting up higher in Grandma Maddy's bed. Apparently, I'd been put there when I wasn't much aware of anything. "But _why?_"

Mom fidgeted. Dad ran a hand absently through her tangled hair. "Why, what?"

"Why did I, you know…"

"Pass out?" Dad suggested.

"Yeah, that."

"Oh, thanks, let me explain that one," Mom muttered. She crossed her legs, shifting the mattress. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, Dad standing behind her. "Because— well… oh, crap, David, you're better at this. I didn't grow up with two surgeons."

She flung her hands up weakly, at the same time I wondered, _Dad's dad was a surgeon too? _

"Or maybe it's the lack of science education in schools," Dad mused. Before I could even ask about _school _again, though, he said, "You know how when Andrew gets sick, he gets better after while, even without med-nanos?"

"Oh. Yeah." I hadn't thought about that. I moved to a more comfortable position, making the needle in my elbow change angles and cord it was attached to twist slowly in the air. Ouch.

"Everyone's body does that. But if you're like you, and your body won't work with the meds and you take them anyway—"

"I didn't _know,_" I interrupted, mumbling. Mom shushed me with, _We know, it's okay. _

"—then your body has to spend time fighting with them to make them stay out," Dad finished easily. "And it's already working on the other infection, and doing too much at once tires you out, especially when you add even more med-nanos. It just got to be too much work, so you…"

"…passed out," I completed.

"Exactly."

Huh. You know, with a nice explanation and everything, it's all sort of… anticlimactic. I told Mom and Dad that.

"So, what _would _be climactic?" Mom wanted to know, laughing. "Vomiting? Hallucinations?"

"Utterly," I giggled, not noticing when the needle slipped around under my skin again. I sank back against the pillow. I was _still _tired, for whatever insane reason, but not nearly as much as I had been. Mom and Dad noticed the second my eyes started flickering shut. They hurried through saying goodnight, reminding me that I still had no idea what time it was. Oh well. I'd figure it out eventually.

Both of them kissed me, and when they both stood half outside the door, I slit one eye open. "Mom? Dad?"

"Yeah?" they chorused, turning.

I yawned, closing my eyes again. "When you guys came and got me this afternoon, after Shay pinged you… were you wearing… you know… sneak suits?"

There was nothing but dead air in my ears for a few seconds. "Nooo," Mom drawled, her tone questioning whether or not I was serious.

"Why would you think that?" Dad added.

"Mmm." I turned my head against the pillow. "I dunno. 'Night."

"Goodnight, Grace," Dad said, the smile making it's way into his voice, even though I had no clue why he'd be smiling.

"Feel better," Mom said softly, as she stepped over the threshold and closed the door with a _click. _

And, know what's totally weird? I could've sworn that I heard her whisper, just outside the room, _Damn, she's observant, _only a millisecond before I fell into sleep.

* * *

_Woah! It took me awhile to update (most definitely), but this chapter is more than four times as long as all the others! How did _that _happen? But I hope you guys enjoyed it anyway. I get more and more into writing from Grace's POV every time. xD I'd love to hear what you thought :) Oh! Also, the book Grace is reading about a quarter of the way through? It _is_ an actual, existing book. A pretty well-know one, too, although it was published a while ago; anyone know it? ;) _


	5. Interlude: Mom & Dad

_And this would be my apology for not updating in forever :P _

_But first! A little fun fact I learned in psychology class: there was an experiment done in which cats had lesions put in a section of their brain called the amygdala. All of the cats were either completely terrified… or completely enraged. Hmm. Anyone else with me in thinking this is totally what the Specials had messed with? ;) _

_Hope you enjoy this little interlude._

* * *

Tally Youngblood had seen her fair share of beautiful things.

She grew up in the Prettytime— she'd seen perfect faces, perfect bodies, endless stretches of perfect buildings housing perfect, beautiful people. She'd seen sparklers puncture the dark sky and let loose a thousand different shades of color; she'd seen Shay's real, honest smile; she'd seen David, asleep at her side.

This, Tally decided, beat it all.

Her entire lower half was numb, either from the pain or the meds Maddy had kept giving her, she wasn't quite sure. Theoretically, as Shay had pointed out in an insanely bogus way multiple times in the past few hours, it shouldn't have hurt it all— Tally was, after all, still very much a Special.

But Specials weren't exactly designed for giving birth.

David helped her sit up, hands skimming over the scars that trailed down her arms. Tally had the sudden, ridiculous urge to cover them, even if her daughter, five whole minutes old, had no chance of recognizing them as her mother's failings.

_Mother. I'm a mother._

David, standing while she sat, watched what she couldn't see: Maddy cleaning the baby, now strangely silent. She hadn't cried more than the few, expected screams at her arrival. Tally found herself worrying about things stuck in her lungs, clogging her mouth, choking her.

"She's okay," Tally said, more a statement than a question. David bent down and kissed the top of her head softly.

"She's fine," he told her, hands at her shoulders. "Mom's got her, she's fine."

Shay also had her, and that was half the reason Tally couldn't even catch a glimpse of her baby— _her baby, her daughter._ Shay's long, long hair was obscuring the tiny table where Maddy hovered over her, cleaning, checking, observing. Looking for something, anything gone wrong.

Tally's stomach clenched, a spot hollowing out beneath her heart. She hadn't done anything wrong, she had actually eaten real _food_ for a whole nine (well, eight and a half) months, she had thought of the baby whenever she wanted to let loose and punch something, she had slept at night when she wasn't even tired. She had _tried. _

All of a sudden, she thought of Dr. Cable. Of cold, cruel beauty, of sneers instead of smiles and a laugh that was always mocking and _I won't be that way._

Her daughter wouldn't be scared of her.

"Tally-wa," Shay said, breaking something tight in the air. "Oh— oh, _damn_, she's beautiful."

Tally's breath shuddered. _She's beautiful. She's beautiful. She's beautiful. _But how could she not be? This was her _baby, _this was she and David's baby, this was something they'd made together and that had, somehow, managed to make a home in the body Tally had spent most of her life hating.

Maddy straightened, sighing from somewhere deep inside of her. Shay laughed quietly, purely shocked, and then Maddy lifted the baby, wrapped in a pale blanket, holding it in a way that made Tally nervous. _I can do that, I can hold her right, I won't hurt her, I won't, I can't, I—_

David's hands pressed slightly harder into her shoulders, then lifted. His mother handed him his daughter, handling her like she was the most delicate thing in the world. Tally tilted her head up, desperate, because all she had seen so far was pink skin and dark hair, nothing concrete, not her baby's _face—_

"Tally," David said, and she opened her arms on nothing more than instinct. "Look at her," he murmured, and laid their daughter against her.

_My baby. My baby. Oh—  
_  
She was more beautiful than a Natural Pretty, more beautiful than a sunrise in the wild. More beautiful than all the Pretties morphed together, more beautiful than any building or smile or dance or sparkler or—

Her face was tiny, so tiny, and Tally's finger shook as she raised it to trail down her baby's cheek. Flushed skin, dark hair, light eyes, eyes blinking up at her with lashes as long as Tally's fingernails. Something inside of her loosened with a jolt.

No fear.

Babies didn't know. Maddy had told her over and over, tried drilling it into her Special-stubborn head, but she hadn't _really_ believed it until now— babies had no idea what was beautiful. People they spent time around, those were their ideals, and so she and David's daughter would grow up thinking that cruel features and normal, non-surged faces were the prettiest things in the world, because those were the ones her parents had.

Her daughter would never be afraid of her.

Tally's laugh was soft and breathy. "_Look_ at her..."

David bent down, touched his baby's forehead. Her face scrunched up, and she twisted to the side, searching. They laughed together, and then the baby's hand reached up farther from her blankets, shaky and new, and grabbed at Tally's still raised hand. She lowered it slightly, perplexed, and the baby struggled for another moment before grasping Tally's finger tightly in her small hand.

Amazement made it hard to breathe. She really did exist, this baby, this baby that was she and David combined, this perfect baby that _she _half-made— _her,_ the one who couldn't seem to do anything perfectly without surge or cures or pills to help her along.

This was the only thing she'd ever done that she didn't need a second try to get right.

Tally reached out with her free hand, to hold David's. It was familiar and comforting, his hand on hers, and she thought about Andrew and Lily visiting only a few days before— of Lily, with long tangled hair and deeply tanned skin, smoothing circles over her stomach and murmuring something that sounded like a mix between song and words.

_Amazing grace, sweet is the sound—_

The baby fussed quietly, making tiny noises in the back of her throat. "Shh," Tally whispered, and used her thumb to rub at her daughter's hand.

_That saved such a wretch as me—_

Light eyes found hers, and Tally breathed in sharply. Those were _her _eyes, she realized suddenly, eyes she had in pictures all around Sol and Ellie's house, eyes before surge to make her perfect had darkened them.

_Once I was lost, but now I'm found—_

David's lips found the top of her head again, and Tally discovered that she couldn't imagine this moment with anyone else. It should have made her feel guilty, should have made her hate herself— but how could she hate herself if something in her had had enough rightness to make _this,_ without even trying_?_

Maybe David had been right all along. Maybe she wasn't made up of nothing but mistakes.

_Blinded, but now I see._

The baby pressed itself closer to her chest, gurgling. "Amazing grace," Tally murmured.

David's answer fell into the shell of her ear. "Lily's song."

"Yeah," Tally said softly. Their daughter fell silent once again. "It's a nice song."

"It is," David agreed, just as quiet. She turned her face upwards at the same time he leaned closer. Their lips met seamlessly, and for the life of her, Tally could not remember ever thinking he was ugly.

"Can we name her Grace?" she whispered against his mouth. It was strange they hadn't talked about it except in passing, what to call the baby that had been with them for so many months, the one that had made her cry for the first time in years when she first felt it kicking at her from the inside out, the one that had her wary to go out in public since just one picture of her stomach would churn out stories on the feeds for days.

David pulled back, but only just, and smiled. Their daughter squirmed experimentally in her blanket, safe in the net their arms had somehow made.

"We can," he said, and she was sure that he knew exactly why. Things she had to explain to other people, David always simply _knew. _

"I love you," she sighed, words that had once sounded awkward on her lips, words she had laughed and confided and screamed and sobbed—

"I love you too," David told her, and, just like there would never be anything else as beautiful as their daughter, there would never be a more beautiful sentence.

The baby— _Grace, _kicked out again, soft noises escaping her new mouth. Tally smiled.

Amazing Grace.


	6. Eleven and 7 Months, Thank You Very Much

_a/n: Wow, it's been awhile! Sorry that this chapter took so long get out. I couldn't decide what to write about. Hope you enjoy!_

* * *

I walked past Mom and Dad's room on the way to bed, then backpedaled. Their door was open, weird in itself, but the fascination for me was the piles of paper and pictures that were flung across their bed.

"What are you guys _doing?_" I asked. Mom sat cross-legged against the headboard, Dad beside her but with his legs stretched out, their heads bent together over whatever photograph was so interesting.

Mom glanced up. "Drowning in nostalgia."

Dad's answer was more satisfying: "Looking at old stuff."

"Wicked," I said, and walked inside to shove a few piles out of the way. I laid down in the path I had made over their blanket. Mom and Dad narrowed their eyes at me. "What? They say it in the Rusty book I'm reading."

"Fabulous." Mom rolled her eyes. I propped my head in my hand, reaching out to turn what they were holding to face me.

"Ew!" I shrieked, and thrust it away again. I hid my face in both hands. "That's _me._"

"We know," Dad said, nudging my side with his foot. "Move over, that pile you're half on top of happens to be organized."

I groaned, rolled onto my back, and was greeted with an upside-down Mom. "Hi."

"You were _cute,_" she defended, flipping the picture again so I could see it right-side up.

"_Were?_"

"Are," she amended, leaning into Dad's shoulder. How vomit-making. "I think this is one Shay took. You were scared of the capture on the wallscreen when you were a baby."

"You used to scream whenever we put you near it," Dad added.

"I was such a good littlie."

"_Are,_" Mom mimicked me.

"Five months!"

They both laughed. How mature.

Mom finally put the ew-faced picture of me down. "Hey David, hand me those other ones, would you?"

"Could you be a little more vague, thanks?"

"_Okay, _those other ones besidethat one. Better?"

"Much." But Dad gave her the ones she wanted, anyway. How does he do that?

"It's creepy when you guys call each other by your names," I announced. Mom shuffled through the pile in her lap.

"Is it?"

"Yeah. I mean… just, _ugh,_" I said, punctuating it with a shiver for effect. "You're _Mom_ and _Dad._ It's even weird when Shay calls you _Tally_ and _David._"

"So basically, in your mind we don't exist beyond the realm of being your parents?" Dad wanted to know. He smiled a little.

"Well… no." I stretched out on the bed, crinkling papers underneath me. Whoops. "I mean, I'm sure you're pretty icy when you're _not _being my parents," I hurried to add. "I just wouldn't want to hear people using your actual names all the time."

"Then school would _suck_ for you," Mom muttered under her breath.

"What?" I let my elbow take the weight of my head again. Mom's eyes snapped to Dad's. Okay… "What's _that _supposed to mean?"

"Noth-ing," Mom enunciated. "Inside joke."

"You and Dad get annoying when you talk with inside jokes," I told her. "I still don't get what Barbie dolls are. But quit trying to distract me."

"We aren't doing that," Dad said. "Hey, more pictures of you. Look."

"Uh-huh," I giggled. "Right. So, school would suck 'cause I'd hear your names every day?" I laughed again. "What, because you guys are in the history texts or something?"

But Mom wasn't paying attention to me. "Are you _serious?_" she demanded, of apparently no one, and reached over Dad to grab at something clinging to the very edge of the bed. She held it up in front of her; I wrinkled my nose.

"Um, ew?"

"It's my old dorm uniform," she explained, shaking out the ugliest skirt I'd ever seen. And that included all the ones Grandma Ellie and Grandpa Sol gave me. "Well, half of it. Wonder where the shirt went."

"Wonder why you still _have _that," Dad laughed. Mom looked mock-offended.

"Be_cause,_" she said, "what do you think I was wearing most of my adolescence?" She didn't give him any time to answer. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

"You lived in the dorms?" I asked, curious. Kina told me that there were dorms where non-littlies used to go live until they got to sixteen, but now it was just a bunch of buildings they held older-kid classes in; nobody _lived _there. And they definitely didn't have uniforms. At least, that's what Kina said.

"Yep," Mom said, still playing with the totally bogus skirt. "Oh, the memories…"

"Kina said they just have school there now."

"Weird," Mom said, dovetailing the end of my sentence. "Hey, you want to see something?"

My brain blinked the word _distraction _for a second, but then Dad handed her a pile of wallscreen-captures like he had been waiting for her to ask. They worked like that— like they always knew what the other one was going to do two seconds before they did it. Very confusion-making sometimes.

Mom fanned out the captures in the space between her and Dad's legs. I leant forward to see. "Um, I don't _know _these people."

"Which is why we're showing you these," Dad said.

"And just because _you _don't know them doesn't mean _we _don't," Mom pointed out. I rolled my eyes.

"How was I supposed to know you randomly have friends in China?"

"Japan," they corrected in unison. "They aren't random," Mom continued on her own. "We _happen _to have met them before you were born. Thank you very much."

I raised my eyebrows. "That's… a long time ago."

"Tell me about it," Mom said dryly.

"Yes, Grace, because you're _so_ incredibly old," Dad added.

"I'm almost twelve!"

"I don't think five months counts as _almost,_" Mom commented to Dad. He nodded. I groaned.

"You guys _are _annoying. I bet Shay thinks so too."

"Trust me, we _know_ Shay thinks so," Mom told me.

I didn't bother answering that one, mostly 'cause it was true. Shay sometimes loud-whispered to me about how annoying my parents were while they were standing right there. "So, are you guys gonna tell me about the pictures, or what?"

"Maybe if you'd stop going off on tangents," Mom said mildly.

"It's really rude," Dad added in the same tone.

"Very," Mom agreed.

"_Guys,_" I moaned, my voice lilting into a whine. They laughed.

"Friends," Dad finally explained, while I peered at the pictures some more. "Like your mom said. We met them awhile ago."

"Uh-huh…" They were mostly captures of a couple with dark, shiny hair, and a boy who looked maybe my age and must have been their son. "Pretty."

Mom sighed. "Yeah. Even her nose."

"What?" I stared at the woman's nose; it looked fine to me. "Um, yeah Mom, it's a great nose. Are you okay?"

"Icy." She shuffled the pictures again, and when she set them down it was like going back in time. The same couple was there, but the kid had shrunken back to the size of a two year old. "Crap," Mom said. It's her favorite word. She glanced at Dad. "What happened to the one of Gracie and Kaito?"

"Huh?" I said in a moment of great intelligence. "Me and who?"

"You and Kaito," Dad clarified oh-so-helpfully, flicking through the pictures again until he finally pulled one free. "Here, it got mixed up." And then he laid down a picture of me and the little dark-haired boy, except this time I was the two year old and he was maybe a little younger. Somebody's arm was holding my little one out at a crooked angle so I could hold him. My face was peering up at whoever the adult was; probably asking, _"Um, why is this thing in my lap?" _

I screeched, then grabbed the picture. "Who is this?! When was this?! Mom! Dad!"

Mom rubbed her ear, even though I knew she was just making fun of me. "Calm down, Gracie."

Dad was more informative. "That's you and Kaito."

"Shockingly, I got that part." I sprang up onto my knees, still studying the picture. My hair was wavy, like I'd just ripped it out of a braid (I still do that. It looks nice, but then I can't stand it after awhile and take it down). I was wearing a decent dress, purple, and a shirt underneath with long white sleeves. Actually, I looked pretty adorable. Except for the completely confused look on my face, but whatever.

The baby looked calm enough, though, for being thrust into my incompetent lap. He had the same pale skin and dark hair both his parents had in the other pictures, and his eyes were staring up at little two-year-old-me, wide and dark. He was pretty aw-making, too.

I raised my head to look at Mom and Dad. "I have no memory of this."

"You were two," was Mom's answer. "Of course you don't."

"They're old friends," Dad said, finally deciding to decode some stuff for me. "Aya and Frizz. The baby's Kaito."

"Huh." I tilted the picture slightly, eyes narrowing. "Why haven't they ever come back?"

Dad shrugged. "It's hard. She's a doctor, he's a chemist." Dad must have noticed my confused face. "He makes medicine for the doctors to give people."

"Ah."

"And we have our own stuff going on," Mom threw in. "Keeping you in line, for example."

"Hey! I'm good."

"Sometimes."

"All the time," I shot back. I tossed the picture of me and Kaito-baby back onto the pile, then glanced something on the one underneath that made me rip it back up. "You didn't tell me about this one!"

It was a more recent picture— or so I figured, since Aya-Mom and Frizz-Dad had Kaito-Kid and a little girl with them. The girl was maybe as old as I'd been in the picture when I was holding Kaito-kid, and had the same long, shiny hair and dark eyes as the rest of her family.

"Oh," Dad said, very clearly unconcerned that they'd forgotten to mention a whole other _child. _"Tha'ts Mai."

Mom tilted her head and smirked. "Aya-la had her _my _way."

Dad snorted. "I don't think you get to call the natural way _your _way, Tally."

"Well, _I _did it first," Mom protested.

"No, I believe that was the proto-sexually-reproducing-organisms that did it first…"

Mom rolled her eyes. "Shut up, you know what I mean."

Huh. You know, I think I knew what they meant, too. "You're talking about—" I started, then bit my lip, then mimed my stomach expanding in front of me.

"Basically," Mom said. "Ugh, that sucked. I mean, not the part where you were around, Gracie. The part where everyone thought I was just getting fat."

I giggled. "Ha ha. You were fat."

Mom decided to be grown up and threw her pillow at me. "Be quiet! I had to fit _you _inside me, of course I got fat."

"Stop saying 'fat,'" Dad warned. "That's not nice."

"I'm David, I'm nice," Mom mocked.

"Wow, that was hurtful."

"So Kaito got put in a surge tank?" I asked.

"Unfortunately," Mom said.

"Not that it means he's bad," Dad added.

"They decided to do it a couple months before we found out you'd shown up," Mom chimed in.

"Thanks," I said. "Really. It's not like you guys had anything to do with me."

"Not at all."

Hmm. Now that I thought about it, I hadn't heard a lot about Mom being pregnant with me. "When did you find out I was there?" I asked, leaning forward on my knees again.

She frowned. "Not sure. I think four months. But then, Dad's pretty stupid."

Instead of getting offended like anyone else on the planet, Dad elbowed her softly. "I don't think you're allowed to say that when _you _were the one who was actually going through it."

Mom sighed noisily. "Fine. We were _both _stupid. But in my defense, 'child growing inside of me' was not my first guess when I started puking up everything I ate and got a bump on my stomach."

Honestly, it probably wouldn't be my first guess either. I sunk back down onto the bed, peering at the picture with Kaito and Mai in it again. Now that I looked, I could tell: his face was smoother, more symmetrical, like he'd never been sick a day in his life. It was that her face was _bad…_ just different, angular.

Weird.


End file.
